(NAME-MCE) An Alaska Native speaks out on Palin, Oil, and Alaska

[Aukram Burton]

An Alaska Native speaks out on Palin, Oil, and Alaska
By Evon Peter
evonpeter at mac.com
9/8/2008

My name is Evon Peter; I am a former Chief of the Neetsaii Gwich'in  
tribe from Arctic
Village, Alaska and the current Executive Director of Native Movement.  
My
organization provides culturally based leadership development through  
offices in Alaska
and Arizona. My wife, who is Navajo, and I have been based out of  
Flagstaff, Arizona for
the past few years, although I travel home to Alaska in support of our  
initiatives there as
well. It is interesting to me that my wife and I find ourselves as  
Indigenous people from
the two states where McCain and Palin originate in their leadership.

I am writing this letter to raise awareness about the ongoing  
colonization and violation of
human rights being carried out against Alaska Native peoples in the  
name of
unsustainable progress, with a particular emphasis on the role of  
Sarah Palin and the
Republican leadership. My hope is that it helps to elevate truth about  
the nature of
Alaskan politics in relation to Alaska Native peoples and that it lays  
a framework for our
path to justice.

Ever since the Russian claim to Alaska and the subsequent sale to the  
United States
through the Treaty of Cession in 1867, the attitude and treatment  
towards Alaska Native
peoples has been fairly consistent. We were initially referred to as  
less than human
"uncivilized tribes", so we were excluded from any dialogues and  
decisions regarding our
lands, lives, and status. The dominating attitude within the Unites  
States at the time was
called Manifest Destiny; that God had given Americans this great land  
to take from the
Indians because they were non-Christian and incapable of self- 
government. Over the
years since that time, this framework for relating to Alaska Native  
peoples has become
entrenched in the United States legislative and legal systems in an  
ongoing direct
violation of our human rights.

What does this mean? Allow me to share an analogy. If a group of  
people were to arrive
in your city and tell you their people had made laws, among which were:
1. What were once your home and land now belong to them (although you  
could live
in the garage or backyard)
2. Forced you to send your children to boarding schools to learn their  
language and
be acculturated into their ways with leaders who touted "Kill the  
American, save
the man" (based on the original statement made by US Captain Richard  
H. Pratt
in regards to Native American education "Kill the Indian, save the  
man.")
3. Supported missionaries and government agents to forcefully (for  
example, with
poisons placed on the tongues of your children and withheld vaccines)  
convince
you that your Jesus, Buddha, Torah, or Mohammed was actually an agent  
of evil
and that salvation in the afterlife could only be found through  
believing otherwise
4. Made it illegal for you to continue to do your job to support your  
family, except
under strict oversight and through extensive regulation
5. Made it illegal for you to own any land or run a business as an  
individual and did
not allow you to participate in any form of their government, which  
controlled
your life (voting or otherwise)

How would this make you feel? What if you also knew that if you were  
to retaliate, that
you would be swiftly killed or incarcerated? How long do you think it  
would take for you
to forget or would you be sure to share this history with your  
children with the hope that
justice could one day prevail for your descendents? And most  
importantly to our
conversation, how American does this sound to you?

To put this into perspective, my grandfather who helped to raise me in  
Arctic Village was
born in 1904, just thirty-seven years after the United States laid  
claim to Alaska. If my
grandfather had unjustly stolen your grandfathers home and I was still  
living in the house
and watching you live outdoors, would you feel a change was in order?  
Congress
unilaterally passed most of the major US legislation that affect our  
people in my
grandfathers' lifetime. There has never been a Treaty between Alaska  
Native Peoples and
the United States over these injustices. Each time that Alaska Native  
people stand up for
our rights, the US responds with token shifts in its laws and policies  
to appease the
building discontent, yet avoiding the underlying injustice that I  
believe can be resolved if
leadership in the United States would be willing to acknowledge the  
underlying injustice
of its control over Alaska Native peoples, our lands, and our ways of  
life.

United States legal history in relation to Alaska Natives has been  
based on one major
platform - minimize the potential for Alaska Native people to regain  
control of their lives,
lands, and resources and maximize benefit to the Unites States  
government and its
corporations. While the rest of the world, following World War II, was  
seeking to return
African and European Nations to their rightful owners, the United  
States pushed in the
opposite direction by pulling the then Territory of Alaska out of the  
United Nations
dialogues and pushing for Statehood into the Union. Why is it that  
Alaska Native Nations
are still perceived as being incapable of governing our own lands,  
lives, and resources
differently than African, Asian, and European nations?

Let me get specific about what is at stake and how this relates to  
Palin and the
Republican leadership in Alaska and across this country. To this day,  
Alaska Native
peoples are among the only Indigenous peoples in all of North America  
whose
Indigenous Hunting and Fishing Rights have been extinguished by  
federal legislation and
yet we are the most dependent people on this way of life. Most of our  
villages have no
roads that connect them to cities; many live with poverty level  
incomes, and all rely to
varying degrees on traditional hunting, fishing, and harvesting for  
survival. This has
become known as the debate on Alaska Native Subsistence.

As Alaska Governor, Palin has continued the path of her predecessor  
Frank Murkowski
in challenging attempts by Alaska Native people to regain their human  
right to their
traditional way of life through subsistence.

The same piece of unilateral federal legislation, known as the Alaska  
Native Claims
Settlement Act (ANCSA) of 1971, that extinguished our hunting and  
fishing rights, also
extinguished all federal Alaska Native land claims and my Tribe's  
reservation status. In
the continental United States, this sort of legislation is referred to  
as 'termination
legislation' because it takes the rights of self-government away from  
Tribes. It is based in
the same age-old idea that we are not capable of governing our people,  
lands, and
resources. To justify these terminations, ANCSA also created Alaska  
Native led forprofit
corporations (which were provided the remaining lands not taken by the
government and a one time payment the equivalent of about 1/20th of  
the annual profits
made by corporations in Alaska each year) with a mission of exploiting  
the land in
partnership with the US government and outside corporations. It was a  
brilliant piece of
legislation for the legal termination and cultural assimilation of  
Alaska Natives under the
guise of progress.

Since the passage of ANCSA, political leaders in Alaska, with a few  
exceptions, have
maintained that, as stated by indicted Senator Ted Stevens, "Tribes  
have never existed in
Alaska." They maintain this position out of fear that the real  
injustice being carried out
upon Alaska Natives may break into mainstream awareness and lead to a  
re-opening of
due treaty dialogues between Alaska Native leaders and the federal  
government. At the
same time the federal government chose to list Alaska Native tribes in  
the list of federally
recognized tribes in 1993. Governor Palin maintains that tribes were  
federally recognized
but that they do not have the same rights as the tribes in the  
continental United States to
sovereignty and self-governance, even to the extent of legally  
challenging our Tribes
rights pursuant to the Indian Child Welfare Act. What good are  
governments that can't
make decisions concerning their own land and people?

The colonial mentality in and towards Alaska is to exploit the land  
and resources for
profits and power, at the expense of Alaska Native people. Governor  
Palin reflects this
attitude and perspective in her words and leadership. She comes from  
an area within
Alaska that was settled by relocated agricultural families from the  
continental United
States in the second half of the last century. It is striking that a  
leader from that particular
area feels she has a right, considering all of the injustices to  
Alaska Native people, to
offer Alaskan oil and resources in an attempt to solve the national  
energy crisis at the
Republican Convention. Palin also chose not to mention the connection  
between oil
development and global warming, which is wreaking havoc on Alaska  
Native villages,
forcing some to begin the process of relocation at a cost sure to  
reach into the hundreds of
millions.

Our tribes depend on healthy and abundant land and animals for our  
survival. For
example, my people depend on the Porcupine Caribou herd, which  
migrates into the
coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge each spring to  
birth their young. Any
disruption and contamination will directly impact the health and  
capacity for my people
to continue to live in a homeland we have been blessed to live in for  
over 10,000 years.
This is the sacrifice Palin offered to the nation. The worst part of  
it is that there are viable
alternatives to addressing the energy crisis in the United States, yet  
Palin chooses options
that very well may result in the extinguishment of some of the last  
remaining intact
ecosystems and original cultures in all of North America. Palin is  
also promoting off
shore oil drilling and increased mining in sensitive areas of Alaska,  
all of which would
have a lifespan of far fewer years than my grandfather walked on this  
earth and which
would not even make a smidgen of an impact on national consumption  
rates or longer
term sustainability. McCain was once a champion of protecting the  
Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge and it is sad to see, that with Palin on board, he is  
no longer vocal and
perhaps even giving up on what he believes in to satisfy Palin's  
position.

While I have much more to say, this is my current offering to elevate  
the conversation
about what is at stake in Alaska and for Alaska Native peoples. Please  
share this offering
with others and help us to make this an election that brings out  
honest dialogue. We have
an opportunity to bring lasting change, but only if we can be open to  
hearing the truth
about our situations and facing the challenges that arise.
Many thanks to all those who are taking stands for a just and  
sustainable future for all of
our future generations,

*This essay is a personal reflection and should not be attributed to  
my tribe or organization